Sunday, May 4

[Clarify]

I re-read my last post and felt that I should make it very clear that I actually love Sydney. I don't think my tone conveyed this fact in a lucid fashion.

posted by pete at 00:22

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Saturday, May 3

[Four million]

Sydney continued to provide interesting and fun activities, if you ignore the pitiful collection at the Museum of Contemporary Art, just don't go there. More like year 3 science class if you ask me, but perhaps my finger's not on the pulse of artistic discourse. Help yourself to meditating in the middle of an installation (some punter felt the urge), I'm glad you're in communion with the artwork but I've yet to see something more try-hard.

Moving on...

Oxfort St (Ariel bookstore and the odd Banksy stencil), Newtown (so young and interesting, so many cheap Thai eateries), Pitt St (that Westfield is a horrible exercise in concentricity), QVB (BaySwiss = soul restoration although they've gone a bit berzerk with Buddha statues), Galeries Victoria (Kinokuniya), Circular Quay (aforementioned lame art), Surrey Hills, Hornsby, the fun just went on and on and on.

And I bought some shoes.

Then this afternoon I left sunny (and slightly too hot) Sydney where everyone seems to smile at you (unheard of in Melbourne, what's with that?) and descended through ominous clouds into a grey, bleak, cold city in which everything seems to lie beneath a thick layer of grime. I peered out the window and was glad to be home.

And here's a couple more brackets for good measure. ( )

posted by pete at 17:48

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Thursday, May 1

[Sydney]

It's good to be back in Sydney. I'm staying with Deb in Hornsby, and after a squaa sleep we hit the city today. She went on a bit of a Zoo York odyssey, finally acquiring a long-lusted jacket, and I had to remind myself time and time again that I have no job at the moment. (A navy Zoo York jacket with a skull and crossbones and a hood, gee it was cool on so many levels.)

So we walked the city, paraded up Oxford Street to Paddington and then turned around. We're back at Hornsby now, in an Internet cafe and I believe Deb may actually be updating her site, the slack cow, so check it out.

posted by pete at 19:12

[Hay Plain]

As if Deb and I traversed one third of this continent in a red Festiva. But we did, and 'Stinky' (the car) is laughing in the face of his/her detractors.

Setting out from Adelaide a touch later than expected, we crossed the beautiful Adelaide hills (resplendent in Autumn's melancholic beauty) and dropped down into the Mallee. Two carriageways merged into one; we opened another bag of junk food and settled in for the long haul. Naturally my sunglasses broke.

From my various road trips (Alice Springs, Melbourne, Falls Creek, Eyre Peninsula, York Peninsula, Flinders Ranges etc.) I have deduced that most of this country really is just the same. The great, endless nothing. Purists would argue otherwise, claiming that I am overlooking the nuances and spirit of the land, but in my opinion it is thousands of kilometres of arid red soil carpeted with shrubs and decorated with the odd weatherbeaten tree. Let's not forget the ravages of salinity and the misuse of natural resources, we drove through the desert rice regions, oh don't get me started.

All undulation ceases on the Hay Plain, and sparkling bitumen carries monster trucks over mind-numbing expanses (which admittedly possess a stark and serene beauty). We had so many good CDs and sang our way across the land, waving to road workers and honking at parallel trains.

We spent a night in Balranald. It was a reasonable motel with a restaurant offering a range of country cooked 'delights'. I guess I've become a bit pretentious in my urban days. (And Southern NSW was as far from a city as I've been for a while!) Day two brought us to the regional city of Wagga Wagga, help yourself it was nice enough but I could never live there. Finally we joined the Hume highway, double carriageway again and it was plain sailing into Sydney (depite a near-miss with Canberra).

Well, almost plain sailing, if you ignore the fact that Sydney offers no opportunity for right-hand turns and has as esoteric a road network as I've ever seen. That's what you get when you build upon bullock tracks, I suppose.

I love a good road trip, despite the reasonable probability of death. There are some psychos out there, but we played it safe. And drove. And drove. And drove.

What song would you like next? :)

posted by pete at 19:09

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